Yidi Wu

smallness, shadows, and self-awareness

I remember sitting in my best friend’s muggy Everett dorm room, chin on my knees, knees against my chest. It was a familiar and comfortable pose that made me feel self-contained. Safe. She and I were in the middle of a heated discussion when, in the middle of it, she stopped—“Claribel, why do you always…

rest in publicity

On the day of my eighth-grade graduation, I learned just how popular people get after they die. As we lined up in height order to process into the gymnasium, I felt a shudder behind me, and by the time I turned around, one of my classmates was well into her second sob. “He died,” she…

And other things on my to-do list

I’ve spent the past nine weeks thinking about what I’ll do when I graduate. I began thinking about it on the third of August, when I received a job offer from Unnamed Large Telecommunications Company. I asked when they wanted my response, and they said they wanted it immediately. I said no, and then they…

Everybody here wanted something more Searching for a sound they haven’t heard before Welcome to New York It’s been waiting for you. – Taylor Swift, “Welcome to New York” The man who owns the oldest record store in Greenwich Village will tell you he doesn’t want to talk to you. Believe him. Psychics never…

the longest summer solstice

My father didn’t die of cancer this summer. There was a moment, mid-July, when I thought he might, but I’ll tell you now that the oral cancer that arrived so suddenly in early July vanished by early August. Technically, the oncologists said it wasn’t sudden at all; the tumor invading my father’s mouth and lymph…